Use Google Maps to visualize oil spill

Looking out at open ocean, it is hard to grasp the enormity of the Gulf Oil Spill. Google Earth helps put the size into perspective.

Using Google Earth, Paul Rademacher has built a tool to show just how enormous the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico has become compared to places like Manhattan, Paris, London, and other global landmarks. You’ll need the Google earth plug-in downloadable here to use the tool.

Perhaps mere cities like Manhattan aren’t a good comparison because the oil slick now reaches out to the tip of Long Island to the East, out of Westchester County into Connecticut to the North, and from the Hudson Shelf to Jersey in the South. Smaller US states may be a better comparison.

To give you an idea, the oil spill is now bigger than the Big Island of Hawaii. Compare to your part of the world here.